Internships for 17-Year-Olds: A Comprehensive Guide to Launching Your Career
For many 17-year-olds, the prospect of entering the professional world can be both exciting and daunting. Internships offer a unique opportunity to explore career paths, gain practical experience, and build a professional network. This article breaks down everything you need to know about internships for 17-year-olds, from finding the right opportunity to making a lasting impression.
Why Internships Matter for High School Students
There is a wide misconception that internships are a college or graduate experience, but this simply isn’t true. In fact, more and more high school students are beginning to realize the importance of internships. High school is a crucial time to strengthen your professional work experiences. Internships show future employers that you have the ability to thrive in the workplace and add tangible evidence of skills to resumes and college applications.
Internships offer numerous benefits for high school students:
Career Exploration: Internships provide a chance to explore different career paths and industries before committing to a specific field of study. If you’re interested in a particular career field like journalism or business, for instance, this is your chance to get on the ground with people who actually do it for a living.
Skill Development: Internships allow you to apply what you’re learning in school to real-world situations, developing valuable professional skills such as teamwork, collaboration, and communication.
Read also: Summer Internship Guide for 14-Year-Olds
Networking Opportunities: Internships provide a chance to network with professionals in your field of interest, building relationships that can lead to future opportunities. Networking occurs when you cultivate relationships with people who share your professional interests, in the hopes that you can draw on each other’s experiences and knowledge.
Resume Building: Internships add tangible evidence of skills to resumes and college applications. Internships show future employers that you have the ability to thrive in the workplace.
Personal Growth: Internships offer a chance for personal growth and self-discovery, helping you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, and passions.
Finding the Right Internship
Opportunities are available in any field that you can imagine. Searching for an internship is the perfect opportunity to practice your networking skills. Remember, the more people who know that you’re searching for an internship, the better your chances of finding one. Showing your enthusiasm also proves useful when uncovering internships.
Here are some resources to help you find internships:
Read also: Comprehensive Internship Guide
High School Guidance Counselor or College and Career Center: Your high school guidance counselor or college and career center are excellent sources to turn to for community-based advice, too. They can give you specialized feedback based on your goals and from the experiences of past students.
Online Job Boards: The internet is a great resource to find internships.
Glassdoor: Glassdoor is a site that hosts anonymous employee reviews about company culture, salaries, and possible interview questions.
Indeed: Indeed combines elements of the previous two resources by allowing you to upload a resume, search for jobs, and read company reviews.
Internships.com: Also referred to as Internships.com, this site is unique in that it specifically focuses on internship listings, which you can sort by experience level and compensation.
Idealist: Idealist lists jobs, internships, and even volunteer opportunities available in the nonprofit sector.
Company Websites: Many companies offer internship programs, so check the career pages of companies you’re interested in.
Networking: Talk to your family, friends, teachers, and mentors to see if they know of any internship opportunities.
Internship Programs for High School Students
Here are some examples of internship programs available for high school students:
Lockheed Martin Space’s High School Internship Program: This program is designed to give students interested in pursuing STEM-related careers the opportunity to work with aerospace scientists and engineers.
USSS Pathways Program: Through participation in the USSS Pathways Program, students gain insight into the nature and structure of the Secret Service while gaining valuable personal and professional skills. Students must be at least a junior in high school, have a minimum 2.5 GPA, and be in good academic standing.
Zuckerman Institute’s BRAINYAC (Brain Research Apprenticeships in New York at Columbia): This program connects NYC 10th and 11th graders with scientists for hands-on neuroscience research experiences. Students begin with a mentor-guided research program on weekends in the winter, followed by a full-time summer lab internship.
Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Scholars Program: The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Scholars Program offers valuable hands-on experiences working with full-time AFRL scientists and engineers on cutting-edge research and technology. Participants are assigned to projects in a variety of STEM-related fields, each of which will give them experience working in a technology-based environment under the supervision of experienced researchers and engineers.
Hutton Program: The Hutton Program is a paid summer internship and mentoring program for high school juniors and seniors interested in pursuing natural resource and environmental management.
Cincinnati Museum Center (CMC) Internship: This is a fantastic opportunity for just-graduated high schoolers to gain professional experience and build networks before attending their first college class. Assignments vary, however, the perks-which include free admission to permanent CMC exhibits, access to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and invitations to select exhibit previews/special events/lectures-are the same for all interns. Students can also apply for programs in the winter, summer, or fall.
Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) Student Research Internship Program: The Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) offers a Student Research Internship Program for highly motivated high school students. Students will work within the program to complete a research project, encapsulating it in a final presentation to faculty.
New York Historical Society Internship: Interns use the resources of the New York Historical Society to conduct exciting research and share their scholarship through creative projects.
Microsoft’s Discovery Program: In Microsoft’s Discovery Program, students will learn a lot about the world of computer science and programming.
Smithsonian Internship Opportunities: The Smithsonian offers a wide variety of internship opportunities, ranging from centrally funded opportunities that place interns throughout the Smithsonian to specific opportunities available at each of the Smithsonian’s various museums, research centers, and other units.
Johns Hopkins Internship Program: Through the program, interns build professional and community leadership skills, as well as the practical skills needed for employment in health professions.
University of Maryland’s Brain Exploration with Applied Neurotechnology (BEAN) Program: This summer program exposes Baltimore-area high school students from underrepresented backgrounds to careers in the neurological sciences.
NASA Internship Opportunities: NASA offers a multitude of internship opportunities for full-time high school students over 16 years of age.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art High School Internship: Rising juniors and seniors from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut can connect with professionals in the fields of art, museum, and creativity at one of the world’s finest museums-The Metropolitan Museum of Art-with this awesome in-person paid internship. Over the course of this program, students will develop professional skills, build a network, and gain work experience in various departments of the museum.
Ladder Internships: Ladder Internships is a selective start-up internship program for ambitious high school students! In the program, you work with a high-growth start-up on an internship. Ladder’s start-ups are high-growth companies on average raising over a million dollars. This highly flexible program is designed to be accessible to a wide range of students. You will complete your internship remotely, from anywhere in the world, and there are internships available throughout the year, so you can easily plan around your other commitments-you can expect to work for 10-20 hours/week, for 8-12 weeks.
Chicago Architecture Center Teen Internship Program: This eye-opening internship allows Chicago high schoolers to engage with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) fields while preparing for a variety of careers. Participants are given space for personal growth and scientific experimentation while connecting with peers from around the city.
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF) Internship: This paid internship connects a diverse group of socially concerned high school juniors and seniors with non-profits to serve their communities and build leadership. Participants leave the program with a firsthand look at how non-profits, governments, and businesses collaborate to meet local needs and the skills needed to bring about positive change. The program includes a one-week in-person summit in Washington D.C., where students will congregate and continue to develop their skills.
Indiana University’s STARS (Students Training as Research Scientists) Program: This awesome internship opportunity offers exposure in biomedicine and behavioral science to students from underrepresented populations. On Indiana University’s campus, students will learn from faculty, fellow students, and researchers to gain experience and knowledge in biomedicine and behavioral science and begin their path toward a career in these fields.
The Borgen Project Remote Internship: High school students 16 years of age or older can participate in this internship and provide front-line support for social issues in India, without having to leave the comfort of their home. Interns can expect to help with everything from writing reports to fundraising to creating content for social media.
Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh Internship: Unpaid in-person internships are available at all four Carnegie Museums-Carnegie Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Carnegie Science Center, and The Andy Warhol Museum-allowing high schoolers to work in either public-facing or behind-the-scenes positions.
Princeton University Summer Internship: Princeton University offers a full-time research experience for students looking to enter STEM fields such as engineering and natural sciences. Faculty and staff will incorporate interns into ongoing research projects where they will gain hands-on exposure to research in an intensive environment. The internship is highly selective and encourages students to be local.
Stanford University Institutes of Medicine Summer Research Program (SIMR): This free two-week opportunity offered by Stanford University allows rising high school juniors and seniors to explore cutting-edge chemical research. Participants will work with different graduate students from the chemistry department to explore different types of research-learning about an array of scientific topics and techniques while fostering a broader understanding of the field.
BSA Foundation Summer Design Studios Internship: Aspiring Boston-area architects will want to look into this paid internship pairing students with local architecture firms.
The Jackson Laboratory Summer Student Program: This prestigious internship allows students to immerse themselves in genetics and genomic research at one of The Jackson Laboratory’s two campuses: Farmington, Connecticut, or Bar Harbor, Maine.
Simons Summer Research Program: While not an internship per se, the Simons Summer Research Program provides hands-on experience in science, math, or engineering as participants work closely with faculty mentors on real research projects. Students become part of a research team, take ownership of their project, and participate in workshops, lectures, lab tours, and special events. The program is open to high school juniors.
Making Your Application Stand Out
The internship process may be your first time putting together a resume. But, remember, that discomfort and nervousness is normal. And the internship search doesn’t have to be intimidating. Organization will be essential here. Trying to juggle internship listings, applications, and deadlines can get confusing, so create a virtual spreadsheet or calendar to keep on time. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you want to leave an impression on employers, but what this looks like varies according to every person. My strengths will not be the same as your strengths and vice versa. When considering each of the following components, be mindful about highlighting your own qualities, dreams, and motivations. In general, any internship is beneficial to your application, but some are more influential than others. For example, the more high-profile and selective the opportunity, the better it looks to a prospective school. Similarly, the more responsibility and leadership a student demonstrates in an internship position, the more likely it is to catch the eye of an admissions office.
Here are some tips for making your application stand out:
Resume: Almost every application will ask you to attach a resume, a document which summarizes your prior background and skills. Generally, you want to keep it brief; try to keep your resume no longer than one page (recruiters spend an average of six seconds on every resume).
Cover Letter: Your cover letter should be considered hand-in-hand along with your resume. Whereas the resume is a succinct list of your abilities, the cover letter is a supplement which allows your personal voice to shine. When given the option you should always include it. It is a one-page letter detailing your interest in an organization and the contributions you would like to make, so elaborate on why this internship in particular excites you.
Proofread: After writing your resume and cover letter, put them aside for a few days and then review them with fresh eyes. Running them through an online grammar or spell checker helps to catch mistakes, but also be sure to show them to people you trust. They’ll be able to suggest structural edits and remind you of skills that you might have forgotten to highlight.
Digital Presence: There are two aspects of your digital presence: the professional and the personal. As expected, the first has to do with the information that is posted for the benefit of your professional network. Use a professional headshot when creating your professional profiles. And you don’t have to get it professionally shot; a well-lit cellphone photo should do the trick. As you’re browsing through feeds, be on the lookout for chances to craft your personal narrative.
References: References can make or break a potential internship, so select people who know you well and will be able to vouch for your strengths. While your friends and family will have wonderful things to say about you, refrain from listing them as references, since these are meant to be people who can speak about you in a professional capacity. At the same time, resist the temptation to list somebody who has impressive credentials but doesn’t really know that much about you.
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